Radio AM to FM: July 18, 2003
NAB, Media Groups get Bashed
In what appears to be a major example of being careful of what you wish for,
the National Association of Broadcasters and the major media groups are fast
becoming targets due to their push over the past few years for relaxed FCC ownership
rules.
Sure, they got what they wanted last month: new rules from the FCC that allow
cross-ownership of newspapers and television stations as well as in increase
in the number of television and radio holdings in certain markets.
What the media groups didn't count on was a huge backlash on the part of the
public that is culminating in possible ways to not only reverse the FCC rules,
but to perhaps make them even more restrictive than before.
This week a bipartisan effort was launched in the United States Senate to veto
the rules under a resolution that allows Congress to veto rules made by a federal
agency if they believe a significant error was made in making those rules. The
resolution is rarely used, but thousands of telephone calls, letters and e-mails
to members of Congress from the public has made the Senate willing to look into
it.
So far 35 Senators have signed a petition supporting the bill, which was introduced
by Republican Trent Lott and Democrats Byron Dorgan
and Russ Feingold on Tuesday.
"This is not a procedure that I do lightly," Lott said at a press
conference announcing the resolution. "I think this is a very important
issue."
At the same time, news coverage of the new FCC rules seems to be galvanizing
the public against them: the more people know about the rules, the more likely
they are to be against them. This week the Pew Research Center released a poll
showing that 50 percent of those surveyed say the rules will have a negative
impact on the country, and 70 percent of those who say they have heard a lot
about the rules have a negative view of them.
And if that isn't enough, while it isn't truly related, the negative views of
the rules by the public and Congress certainly can't help as a report gets released
stating that perhaps Congress was too restrictive when it authorized Low Power
FM stations. Since the National Association of Broadcasters is on record of
being opposed to any LPFM stations, the negative feeling toward the ownership
rules may have an unintended effect: more LPFM stations.
In Related News
If the ownership rules stand, or if they are changed rather than fully reversed,
Clear Channel Communications may find itself in a bit of a
pickle down in San Diego. The company owns the maximum of eight stations in
the market, but through sales and marketing agreements with stations licensed
in Mexico -- but geared toward the San Diego market -- actually controls 12.
Under the new FCC rules, those agreements would count toward the market cap,
and CC would be forced to sell or stop programming four of them.
Too early to tell if anything will really happen, though, as the FCC rules are
obviously up in the air, and there would be a two-year period before the new
rules would be enforced.
Limbaugh Plays Football
He may have been passed over -- twice -- for a coveted spot on ABC's Monday
Night Football, but popular conservative talker Rush Limbaugh
-- heard locally weekdays at 9 AM on KFI -- will be joining ESPN's Sunday
NFL Countdown show beginning September 7th.
The irony should not be lost here: ABC owns ESPN.
Is this a way to groom Limbaugh for the Monday Night Football spot? Considering
he is a huge football fan and very knowledgeable about the sport, it wouldn't
be a bad idea.
Corrections
David Alpern wrote in to correct a mention of Texas alternative station KGSR
(www.kgsr.com). I had called it KSGR, which turns out to be a religious station,
according to Alpern.
And it appears that KBRT (740 AM) isn't a daytime-only station
after all. At least they don't have to be. According to K. M. Richards, referring
to the FCC database, KBRT is authorized for 10,000 watts during the day, and
113 watts at night ... enough to cover Catalina Island -- where their transmitter
is located -- but not enough to break through San Francisco's KCBS, which blankets
most of California, including Los Angeles, at night. After trying night broadcasts
for a time, KBRT gave them up, even though they are still authorized to have
them.
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Copyright © 2003 Richard Wagoner and The Copley Press.
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